Consider doing the following five activities:

Build Your Network

Now is the time to catch up on that networking that you never seemed to have time to do when you were employed.  This is the perfect opportunity to dust off the address book and catch up with old colleagues. Better yet, dig into your LinkedIn account and connect with individuals with whom you have not spoken to in some time.

Update Your Work Skills (formal or informal)

Now is the perfect time to take some classes to update your work skills. Most local community colleges offer short term classes that can sharpen your proficiency in many different types of computer applications or other vocation building competencies.  If you cannot afford to attend these classes, check with your unemployment office, oftentimes there are programs that you qualify for that can provide you with free re-training that can help with landing a better job. There are also plenty of books and training videos that can be found online or at the library. Make use of this free time and resources that you have to capitalize off of this learning opportunity.

Volunteer Your Time

Now is the best time to volunteer your time and expertise with a favorite charity or community service group. This allows you the opportunity to meet new people and potentially discover other employment opportunities that are outside of your primary field of work.  You may find out that the charity or community service group you are volunteering with has a paid position that you qualify for.  Volunteer work can also help you with filling in that gap of employment in your resume.

Try Freelancing

Most of us have a skill that can be outsourced to others. There are several places where you can offer your services on a contractual basis. Try looking at websites such as www.elance.com or www.getafreelancer.com. These sites match make small businesses looking for short projects with those individuals skillful enough to accept and complete those assignments.  Craigslist is another powerful website where you may post your experience and find short term work.

Exercise

Take a little bit of time to work on something you probably haven’t been paying much attention to… your health.  Unemployment can be a stressful time in your life. This is not the time to start eating everything in the pantry or taking up the unhealthy habit of drinking or smoking (even though the temptation may be there). Start a workout routine and exercise your body. This will give you more energy and you will be amazed what routine exercise can do for your mind and thought process.

The most important thing to remember when you have been laid off is to continue doing activities that create positive activity in your life. While things may seem bleak and dire, it has been proven that those who continuously work at it WILL find a job. Statistically, people who lounge around after a lay off take a lot longer to find a job than those who stayed in constant motion.

The first place you can start branding yourself is through your name. Think about it for a moment, your name is one of the most consistent brands that you posses. Unless you are a woman who marries and changes her maiden name, you will more than likely have the same name for the rest of your life.

Purchasing your own name as a domain name is something that is highly recommended for personal branding. Even if you are not ready to host your own website, blog, or career portfolio, you should consider purchasing your personal domain name as a commodity that will have future value.

There are billions of people on the planet and chances are there is someone else who shares the same name as you. If you are lucky to find that your name is still available as a domain, I would recommend that you purchase it immediately before someone else does.

The first thing you should do is conduct a domain search for your name. If your name is common, there will be a great chance that your name is already taken. The returned search results will determine the strategy that you will use in branding your name.

The easiest and simplest way to conduct a domain search is by visiting the popular domain registrar, GoDaddy. On the front page of GoDaddy you will find a search box labeled, “Start a Domain Name search”. In the search box, enter your full name without any spaces. The search function is already set up to search the .com extension. Click the Go button and the system will let you know if your name is already taken as a domain.

If the .com extension is taken, you will have to brainstorm some alternative ideas about what combination of your name you will be able to register. You could check to see if other domain extensions are available such as .net or .info. GoDaddy will show you if other extensions (.net, .info, .org, .me, .tv, .mobi) of your name are available.

Another option is to add your middle name in your domain or add something onto the beginning or end of your name. An example might be www.bobhenryjohnson.com or www.bobjohnsononline.com. Whatever your choice, consider it carefully as this will be the brand name that you will build consistency with.

Personal Branding is the process whereby people market themselves as brands.

Personal Branding is the process whereby people market themselves as brands. It is a concept that suggests that a person’s perceived value comes from their “self-packaging”. This includes but is not limited to the individual’s appearance, knowledge and associations. If marketed correctly, it leads to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable. Branding is not just about being better than your competition. It’s about getting prospective customers to think of you first and choosing you as the ONLY solution to their problems.

Here are five advantages to having a strong personal brand:

1. Individuality and separateness in the marketplace
   You want your prospective employer or client to be able to easily differentiate who you are, the skills you offer and the benefits of hiring you over your peers who work in the same industry.
2. A reputation of integrity and character
   Your personal brand should be a reflection of who you are as a person. Branding helps define your reputation of integrity and character. It is an expression of the ideology of what you stand for; it is your opinions, values, beliefs and moral character. It’s not just what you say but what you do.
3. Control of Perception
   The branding process gives you the ability to take control of your identity and influence the perception others will have about you and the services you offer. When you properly manage your brand, you essentially paint your desired image that you want others to have of you.
4. Magnetic Attraction
   When you have created a strong personal brand, you will find that you can attract clients and opportunities almost effortlessly at your will. You will establish yourself in the mind of your industry peers and clients as the recognized authority figure of choice. This branding statement will afford you the ability to dominate your market and command higher salaries and consultant fees.
5. Celebrity Status
   Proper branding can give you local and even national celebrity status within your industry. Work your brand so that you gain name recognition in your area of expertise where it counts the most – in your customer’s mind. Make a lasting impression and you will become a sought after expert and highly compensated for your individuality.

Trust, respect, and admiration will follow when your name and message are embedded repeatedly into the consciousness of your target market. You will be perceived as an expert the more you are visible to your target audience. Your brand will propel you to the top in your marketplace.

SEO is the acronym for “search engine optimization”. It is a process of improving the visibility of a document when certain keyword phrases are searches for using a search engine. Documents that are optimized properly for the right keyword phrases have a greater chance of appearing in the top search results. Documents in the top results are the first viewed and often receive a high volume of traffic.

A LinkedIn profile is nothing more than a resume populated with keywords that describer  an individual’s employment background, skills, and experience. LinkedIn users search the social network’s database to find professionals based on keywords that accurately identify an individual’s qualifications.  Connections are made via this business-oriented social network for a wide range of purposes to include job opportunities, business relationship building, company research and so much more.

A fully completed profile can help a individual effectively network with others who are looking to establish direct business connections. In addition to landing career opportunities, LinkedIn can provide the benefits of building strong relationships with potential mentors, customers, and individuals with whom you can share intellectual capital with.

Items that should be included in your LinkedIn profile:

• Schools you attended
  - Full school name as well as abbreviations (University of Georgia/UGA)
• Companies you were employed by
  - Parent company, subsidiaries, mergers and acquisitions of defunct companies
• Job related skills you posses
  - Industry keywords, software, tools and acronyms (enterprise java beans/EJB)
• Associations you are a member of
  - Any relevant business associations including fraternity, sorority and civic community groups
• Elevator Pitch
  - Write your elevator pitch in the summary of your profile
  - Announce the solutions that your background and experience solves
• Recommendations
  - Request endorsements from managers, colleagues and clients (these are like product reviews)
  - Writing recommendations for others increases your exposure by being on someone else’s profile
• Public Profile URL
  - Change the LinkedIn default assigned value to something closer to your identity (www.linkedin.com/in/otiscollier)

It is important that special attention is given towards the specific keywords that are used in a profile. Users should carefully examine their background and use industry specific keywords that describe their work experience.  A great rule of practice is to write out a list of all the keywords that will show up on the user’s profile before it is created. This list will often serve as a memory jogger for keywords not initially thought of. Finally, users should conduct searches for individuals like themselves to observe what others are using on their profiles to be found.

Establish yourself as the recognized authority figure in your industry and you will be swamped with business.

You’ve heard the saying; it’s not what you know but who you know. In branding that saying is twisted even further to say, it’s not who you know but who knows you. Your brand is your name, it’s your logo, it’s your color combination and it’s your reputation. Your brand is the message that you want to convey to others when they think about you.

Before you create a brand you must decide what image you want your brand to have. What is the message that you want others to have in their mind when they think of you? What logo best represents that image? What is the color scheme that best reflects your style?

Once you determine what that brand is, you need to put it to work. There are several key elements of a brand that must be in effect in order to consider your brand successful.

1. Grab Your Audience’s Attention
You could be the best plumber the world has ever seen; however, if no one knows you exist you might as well not. Branding is about letting the world know that you are here and that you are the top professional in your field. If you are a plumber, you must find a way to let the people in your town know that you are the best plumber in that city.

Grabbing people’s attention is not that difficult to do. The key is to capture it in a way so that it creates a recognized authority persona. That means you must brand then market your unique competitive advantage.

2. Create an interest in who you are and what you do
The best way to get people to buy into your competitive advantage is by getting them interested in who you are and what you do. This is often done by educating your audience.

Your audience must have ownership in your product or service. They must be involved and engaged. The easiest way to get people involved is by having them acknowledge a specific problem that they are having and then educating them on how you can solve their problem.

3. Establish your Expertise
Once you have captured the interest of your audience, you must then establish your expertise. People do business with those who they trust. Nothing creates trust more than when you can educate someone and then continuously deliver on your promise to solve their problems.

4. Market Saturation
Getting your brand to show up in multiple venues takes time and work. Market saturation is something that is creatively planned. You goal is to have your brand to seemingly appear everywhere. Customers should feel that they have heard about your brand from several different validating sources.

To accomplish this, you might consider blogging and writing articles for industry niche publications. Validate your expertise by setting up and recording interview sessions with other well known industry professionals.  Volunteer and book speaking engagements at industry associations.

This strategy requires that you constantly find opportunities where you can showcase your expertise.  Fostering brand recognition keeps your message on the minds of those who are important to you. It builds your status as the recognized authority in your field.

Word of mouth marketing spreads from one person to another in an informal setting without the influence of advertisers. A personal recommendation from a friend or someone familiar or trustworthy adds a layer of credibility about a specific brand, product or service. People are more inclined to believe word of mouth marketing than other forms of promotion methods because the person giving the recommendation is speaking honestly about the product or service. They are also unlikely to have an ulterior motive, meaning that are not motivated by an incentive for their referrals.

In order to build a great word of mouth campaign, individuals must use specific networking strategies that produce desired behavioral responses. An effective networking tactic that creates effective word of marketing is to target key individuals who are authority persuaders and have a high number of personal connections. These individuals are natural “connectors”. They have the innate ability to assess the value of their contacts and match-mate them with each other. One of the most effective books on this topic is called, “The Tipping Point.”

“The Tipping Point” is a must read for individuals who want to maximize the word of mouth marketing of their personal brand. This book will teach you how to identify and tell the difference between people who are labeled as Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. A smart networker does not personally have to be a social butterfly with a large rolodex. They simply need to know how to build relationships with connectors. It is equally important for a networker to know who the Mavens are because the Maven’s personality is to gather extensive information and pass that knowledge along to others. Finally, Salesmen are the personalities who have a unique ability to persuade others.

Marketers place significant value on positive word-of-mouth marketing. Creating a natural buzz about your brand is done through the use of creative networking strategies. These creative strategies are constantly being evolved with the emergence of social media and Web 2.o.

Web sites like Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are just a few social networks that can help you create buzz marketing messages that turn into the powerful and useful resource that word of mouth marketing has become for consumers and marketers.